Drawn to the Vampire (Blood and Absinthe, Book 4) Read Online Free Page B

it was late for a visit, he had a reputation as a cultured and civilized professor to maintain.
    “Come in, damn you!” he shouted.
    To hell with his reputation.
    * * *
    Kit paused outside the heavy oak door, her hand resting on the cold metal handle. “Come in, damn you,” wasn’t exactly a warm invitation, but she hadn’t expected to enjoy meeting Luke Cadris, had she?
    The day already seemed a million years long. She’d landed in London early that morning, exhausted from a red eye flight on which she’d gotten no sleep at all, only to risk life and limb on the wrong side of the road in an impossibly tiny rental car. She’d expected to be killed every moment on the busy highways and relaxed only slightly when she crossed the border into Wales.
    Several miles past the border, she’d been forced to stop in a narrow country lane. A herd of sheep was blocking the road. The light was fading fast, on its way to leaving her alone in the darkness of a rural night.
    Alone with a million sheep. Well, maybe not a million, but more sheep than Kit had ever seen in one place. More sheep than she ever wanted to see again.
    Honking the horn had absolutely no effect on them.
    What a horrible country this is , Kit had thought with sudden violence. She felt in that moment that she hated Wales with every fiber of her being.
    The hedges on either side left her little room to maneuver. She could see more sheep coming through a gate up ahead, filling the road in front of her. Several had squeezed past her car and were blocking the way back.
    Now they were at an impasse. The sheep blinked at her with mild, stupid eyes in mild, stupid faces, and Kit looked back helplessly.
    It might have been funny if she hadn’t been so determined to reach her goal.
    “Screw it,” she muttered finally, opening her car door and stepping out into the raw December air. She hadn’t come this far to be stymied by a bunch of sheep. She only had twenty more miles to go on this miserable journey, and she was damned if she was going to let a herd of animals stop her now.
    “Okay,” she said out loud, trying to sound reasonable and commanding at the same time. How the heck did you talk to sheep, anyway? “It’s obvious you guys are flying solo, since we’ve been sitting here for a while and nobody’s shown up to tell you what to do. It’s cold, it looks like it’s going to rain or snow any second, and it’s going to be dark in less than an hour. Don’t tell me there’s not a cozy barn or sheepfold or something you’d rather be in right now. Forward, backward, I don’t care, just move !”
    Nothing doing. The sheep directly in front of her was looking particularly unintelligent, which was really saying something. Kit tried a gentle push to encourage him. He didn’t budge an inch. She pushed a little harder. No movement at all. Maybe if she picked up each and every one of them and carried them back through the gate? There had to be at least a hundred sheep here. Kit’s heart sank.
    “All right, then, you wooly morons, I’ll drive right through you!” Kit heard herself shouting. “You think I won’t? I’m getting back in that car and I’m going to run you all down. I mean it. Get a move on or I’ll—”
    “I don’t believe that’s a very good plan,” said a female voice.
    For a moment Kit thought one of the sheep had spoken and she wondered if she’d finally snapped under the strain. Then she saw a young woman several yards away, leaning back against the gate the sheep had come out of. A small black and white dog stood at her side.
    “Why not?” Kit asked. “Too many of them?”
    The other girl shook her head. “Your eyes are too kind. You’d never deliberately hurt an animal.”
    The light, or what little there was on this cold, damp afternoon, was rapidly fading into dusk. Kit could see that the other girl wore corduroys and a pea coat, but she couldn’t make out her hair color or read her facial expression. She found it hard